


although my lips are blue and i'm cold

by sappho_irl



Series: seven long years i served for thee [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.3 spoilers, F/F, Trans Female Character, did you know you can replace "hannah" with "raha" in That Song, it's all i thought about while writing this, this was supposed to be fluff all the way down until my wol caught Trauma Feelings, trans g'raha, trans wol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sappho_irl/pseuds/sappho_irl
Summary: Would you believe me, G'raha asked, and by the Twelve, Ramiel is trying. It's the only thing keeping her upright, the iron rod in her back that stops her from melting on the staircase. Panic is rising in her throat, thin, paralyzing tendrils that stop her usual affirmations. The twins taught her how to get through these spells, how to conquer them with time and patience. A quiet mantra and closed eyes conquer the smaller bouts of anxiety, but now.Well.Now, Ramiel gets back on her feet, reaching for the stubbornness in her spirit that's killed tyrants and gods. She can scream and sob and fall apart later, when the thick door to her room at the Rising Stones is locked. Ramiel shakes her head and climbs upwards, sure in step and wavering underneath the Warrior of Light's firm mask. One last task, she thinks, and then you can sleep for a week.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: seven long years i served for thee [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061237
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	although my lips are blue and i'm cold

**Author's Note:**

> a) this doesn't directly connect to [my previous story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22541299), but it can be considered part of the same canon, if you like
> 
> b) they're both trans women, you know how i do things by now
> 
> c) the WoL in this is my own, and she's [pretty](https://twitter.com/everymortalcare/status/1288236042794029058?s=20)

The Source's Tower is a frigid, desolate thing.

It hums with the same strange energy and is haunted by the same ghosts - scores of Allagan experiments and a lone, lonesome warden. But Ramiel can't stop shivering as she ascends winding staircases and trusts her aether to ancient teleportation. The crystal secreted away in the folds of her great coat does little to stop the chill. It may be warm with G'raha's essence, but it keeps her locked in the memory of the Exarch's last moments.

Logically, Ramiel knows what she'll find here, whether it be nestled away in the Ocular or curled up on the Tower's throne. She knows that striking red eyes and a shy, exhausted smile will greet her. Perhaps her hair will be longer - it's been five years, after all - but no, she _knows_ that all will be well. The world cannot be that cruel, not after Ramiel dragged it back from the brink of oblivion. Not again.

Ramiel stops, chest aching and legs trembling, collapsing onto her armored backside. The idea of losing G'raha, so finally and totally, is a sword slipped past her shield. Bad enough she had to see the other woman turned into her own memorial. Worse would be going back to her family and telling them that she failed. Ramiel can imagine the sympathy and the assurances and it makes her nauseous. She's heard it all before. Nothing ever brings the dead back to life or erases her shortcomings.

_Would you believe me_ , G'raha asked, and by the Twelve, Ramiel is trying. It's the only thing keeping her upright, the iron rod in her back that stops her from melting on the staircase. Panic is rising in her throat, thin, paralyzing tendrils that stop her usual affirmations. The twins taught her how to get through these spells, how to conquer them with time and patience. A quiet mantra and closed eyes conquer the smaller bouts of anxiety, but now.

Well.

Now, Ramiel gets back on her feet, reaching for the stubbornness in her spirit that's killed tyrants and gods. She can scream and sob and fall apart later, when the thick door to her room at the Rising Stones is locked. Ramiel shakes her head and climbs upwards, sure in step and wavering underneath the Warrior of Light's firm mask. _One last task_ , she thinks, _and then you can sleep for a week_.

In the end, Ramiel finds G'raha sleeping on a chair in the Umbilicus. The room is bare besides, the books and treasures she'd come to know intimately a product of the Exarch's long century. It keeps her attention focused on G'raha, on the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Frozen in time, still wearing her adventuring leathers and sturdy bracers; the manic scholar stopped by the only thing stronger than her curiosity. Ramiel sighs, slow and wistful, hesitant in the moment. They'd shared a handful of mornings like this on the First - G'raha resting and her observing, making sure that the other woman remained safe.

Ramiel kneels in front of the chair, noting how its plush comfort clashes with the blues and golds of the Tower. She'll have to badger G'raha for its origin story at some point. She pulls the last blessed crystal from her person and holds it for a long breath. It will work. It _has_ to work. If it doesn't Ramiel will go back to the First and tear Norvrandt in half with the weight of her anguish. Or she'll simply cry herself half to death in Y'shtola's lap before getting drunk for a fortnight.

"Cheerful thoughts, girl." Ramiel murmurs to herself, running the pads of her fingers over the crystal's facets. It sings beneath her touch, a faint mimicry of the Tower's eternal hymn. Ramiel blinks back sudden tears and scrubs at her eyes, laughing at herself. Two worlds saved and a family delivered home, yet she's still falling into the darker corners of her mind. The Fury only knows what G'raha would think of this tableau.

"Suppose it's time to find out." Ramiel says after a beat, placing the crystal in G'raha's lap. Beq Lugg had theorized that direct contact might help in the melding of memory and soul. More at ease with her sword than any sort of magic focus, all Ramiel can do is pray that they were right.

It takes longer than the others - long enough, in fact, that Ramiel's starting to panic when the aether inside of the auracite flares. She claps a hand over her mouth, whimpering from behind the closed gate of her palm. The light pulses like a heartbeat and eventually fades with the same quickness. Then, and Ramiel can't stop the tears this time, G'raha's breath catches. Her eyes flutter open. She groans, sounding for all the world like she's just been woken from an impromptu nap.

After a yawn so wide it cracks her jaw, G'raha looks down at Ramiel. Her eyes go wide as dinner plates, brilliant red and still half clouded by sleep. Slowly, G'raha reaches out, brushing her fingers along the other woman's jaw. Ramiel is all too aware that she's using the hand that was once crystal. If she wasn't already on her knees, the tenderness of the gesture would send her there. Lips quirked in the smallest of grins, G'raha says "if this is a dream, it is one most cruel."

Ramiel vaults off the floor and into G'raha's lap, unable to resist the desperate need to _touch_. A full-grown viera is as quick as death and one with Ramiel's experience even faster. She dwarfs her and has to lean down to press their foreheads together. A voice in the back of Ramiel's mind whispers that this can't be comfortable for G'raha, but the urge for contact is overwhelming her better senses. And it's not as if the other woman is protesting - on the contrary, she's managed a grip on Ramiel's hips that's going to leave bruises. 

Ramiel chokes on a hysterical laugh and tangles her fingers into G'raha's hair - that gorgeous, fiery hair, absent any streaks of white. Sobbing, she blurts out "by the Fury, I've missed you."

The full impact of watching the Exarch die - of watching G'raha Tia finally yield to the Tower's conquering touch - hits Ramiel in that moment. The thousand frayed threads of her being _unravel_. She can only cling to G'raha, muttering "you're _here_ " in-between bouts of crying that makes the next round of proclamations a hoarse, scratchy chorus. A dam has burst inside of her, releasing a torrent of stress and anguish that obliterates all rationality. There's only raw, untamed grief and a sensation of being emptied.

It's the relief she never let herself have during the fight to bring Norvrandt back under the watchful eyes of its sunless sea. It's a blessing G'raha grants willingly, now, answering her every frantic assertion with a soft "I'm here."

Ramiel works through the immediate well of emotion after - Gods, she doesn't know. A bell or an entire sun may have passed. What she's certain of is that G'raha is looking up at her with undisguised affection. Even though everything's changed, nothing really has, not between them. Ramiel wipes at stray tears, sniffing loudly and watching G'raha chuckle. No, she's not elegant, but a free paladin has things to worry about beyond manner and propriety. 

"It worked, then? You've not lost anything in the transfer?" Ramiel says, leaning in to kiss G'raha's cheeks. The other woman blushes scarlet but keeps her composure, nodding and tilting her head to the side as Ramiel nuzzles down her neck. She wants to go further, to claim the tender spot hidden by G'raha's choker, but settles for what skin is left to the open air. It's been years since she's felt it under her fangs.

G'raha lets Ramiel get reacquainted for a few glorious moments, mewling beneath her attention. But only a few. Then she's pushing at her shoulders, saying "ah, Ramiel, perhaps - perhaps we should hold off, until, Gods. Until we're both in a better state."

Ramiel snaps back, examining every inch of G'raha that sits quivering underneath her. Wood take her ears, the other woman may not be in shambles, but she looks ready to enjoy the comforts of a proper meal and a real bed. Perhaps a dozen of the former, going by the sudden rumble of her stomach. Ramiel laughs, the burgeoning guilt of overtaxing G'raha smothered by the simple joy of hearing _that_. Of what it means and what it promises in the moons to come.

_I am going to show you everything I've ever seen_ , she thinks, near dizzy with the prospect of traveling the length and breadth of the world with G'raha by her side.

"Come then." Ramiel says, pulling herself from half formed plans and hazy fantasies. It takes work to clamber out of G'raha's lap without impaling her on the sharp edges of her armor. She's endlessly thankful for the miracle of not doing it in her mad rush to be close to the other woman. Halone strike her down if Urianger had to tend to such wounds; Ramiel would never hear the end of it. "I don't think you've met my behemoth yet, and that needs correcting. Izzy is going to _love_ you."

"Your _behemoth_ , lady knight? I believe I mentioned needing to rest before attempting a task as strenuous as that." G'raha says, smirking even as she stands on shaking legs. If Ramiel weren't dumbstruck by the first dirty joke G'raha's told her in half a decade, she'd be entranced. There she was, stretching upwards to the ceiling and making her spine crack in three separate places, the woman she loved.

As is, she darts forward and pulls G'raha into a headlock, shouting "you! You little godsdamned _terror_. You know full well I meant _my mount_ , G'raha Tia!"

Busy as Ramiel may be with mussing G'raha's hair (and it is longer, by a full fulm at least), she can still recognize that she isn't cold anymore. And as the pair of them begin their slow climb down the Tower, she's sure that her immediate future guarantees only warmth.


End file.
